Quick Update

I haven’t disappeared off the face of the earth, I’ve just been busy with work, school, and family. There’s a new medical school starting near me and they’ve received funding to pay for school for the inaugural class of 30 students in 2020. When I first heard about that over the summer, I decided I want to apply. I’m not your typical “pre-med” as I am older, have advanced degrees and a career. I never considered going to medical school because it was expensive and graduate school was free and you got a stipend. I still loved medicine during college and decided to apply for a medical sciences program, focusing on anatomy and neuroscience. When I started program, I took medical school gross anatomy and wasn’t mature enough to put the appropriate effort in. It didn’t help that I had to make a B, but the medical students could get a C. At the same time, the research involved animal studies and the whole idea of killing animals was quite uncomfortable to me. I ended up dropping gross anatomy and I changed my medical science pursuits back to straight chemistry, which was where I was more comfortable. This long story probably deserves it’s own blog describing all of the twists and turns, but it’s not exactly related to healthy living, as there were many bad decisions that eventually lead me to my Ph.D. in analytical chemistry!

I’ve never lost my passion for medicine and health, even when I wasn’t focused on healthy pursuits, so when I learned about this program, I was immediately interested. Ironically, I found out about it a couple of weeks after looking into some genomics and clinical chemistry graduate programs, looking for a way to post-doc my way into the medical sciences. My husband made an off-hand comment about medical school, and I quickly dismissed it because it was so expensive. When I heard the news article about the 30 students getting to attend medical school for free, I was definitely excited about the possibility. I don’t know if I will be chosen, but I figured I could do my best and even if they tell me know, the preparation wouldn’t be wasted.

My undergrad was a little low on biology courses, so I signed up for Biology I (lecture and lab), Nutrition, and Pharmacology at the local community college. I just finished those, and everything went well, other than it was low on teaching (I had no idea that online courses meant self-taught) and high on work, which took up a ton of time. I will take Biology II, and both semesters of Anatomy and Physiology (all with labs), in the spring. I’m afraid that next semester will be more challenging and the A&P classes are each 8-week sessions. Luckily the professor I am taking has great reviews. I hope to take the MCAT in the summer and then see what happens!

I also changed my schedule to 4 10-hour days and on my “day off”, my doctor is letting me watch him see patients and then we talk about everything. It’s been a great opportunity and I look forward to learning a lot that way!

So, yeah, I’ve been busy… I’m still doing my step bets and diet bets (the long ones end in January). So far, I’ve made about $55 profit on the step bets (subtracting the initial ante and membership charge for StepBet not taking a cut and allowing me to do three simultaneously). I’ve been able to manage my bets in a way that keep my goals reasonable. I decided that the HealthyWage step challenges aren’t worth the effort, so I’ve only been doing WayBetter’s StepBets.

My three short-term diet bets earned me a profit of $36.51, as well as a $112 Amazon gift card that I won in a drawing. I’m hopeful about profiting more significantly on my 6-month bets (the DietBet has monthly goals that win money, so after meeting four of those, my earning on my $125 investment is at $96.55, but there’s still one more monthly payout and the final pot is half of the money put in. The HealthyWage one is more straightforward for this particular bet. I bet $120 to meet my goal and if I do, I make $214, or $96 profit.

It’s been hard, but I’m going to make it. There’s more I want to share, but I’ll wait until it’s all said and done!!

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